Why So Frail, Evelyn McHale?
by cornerstreetshop
Summary: this fic explores dark themes of the mental sort, trigger warning inside.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Usually I like notes at the end so I can discuss the chapter and everything but I really feel the need to "trigger warn" this story. If suicide, major depression disorder, substance abuse, and/or neglect affects you, offends you, and/or turns you off from reading then just skip this story. Not all of what I listed occurs directly to/within the protagonist, but it affects her life all the same. This is not a generally happy story, but it won't be blow after blow after blow either. However, if you're expecting to be smiling or laughing for a majority of this story...Don't...**

**also the regular disclaimer of not owning anything applies. Enjoy as much as you can for being either curious or a glutton for bad feelings Kidding! **

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_When you're a pretty girl, it's quite easy for your death to be made into a spectacle. Even if you died in the most gruesome way, wild dogs pulling the muscles fiber by fiber off of your face after being impaled by only half of an iron maiden, people would make your ending into the final scene of mesmerizing movie._

_"She was so beautiful, but in the end she lost it all. Beauty is only skin deep, you see, and now she knows. Tragic how it's too late, though," they'd say before wiping off a stray tear and then walk out of the theater to their cars to drive away from your deadness._

_There's a famous picture of a woman who committed suicide; she's laid out on a car like she was preciously taking a nap, legs crossed at the ankles and clothing slightly askew. She threw herself out of a window and dented the car so badly that not even a time machine would fix it – but everyone stares at the picture with the same mind-set._

_They want to look like her when they die._

_They want to look like her as they're living._

_Her note said something about being unworthy but whenever someone sees the picture, they can't think of anyone else who would be more worthy of the attention unjustly thrust upon her. Imagine her parents, her family, her fiancé seeing that picture – seeing everyone clamor on and on about a woman they know next to nothing about, speculate about how they would have made her want to live or helped her in some way – imagine her closest relatives being able told back-handedly that they don't know how to love someone that they didn't know needed perhaps just a little bit more. Or maybe not even love at all, maybe just support that they didn't know how to ask for or an escape plan that isn't exactly plausible but still assuaging when things got too cloudy._

_When you're a pretty girl who commits suicide either the world seems like a darker place to the public or you seem like an uglier person post mortem because of your choice._

_And they don't realize that the world isn't one of those pop-up haunted houses on Halloween, who you were living can't be made uglier by you being dead and it's not really a choice. It's a refusal to stop playing chicken on a train track right outside the station. You know the train will stop there and you know that perhaps you could actually ride the train to the next destination, too, if you could just make a tiny step to the left. But you've been inching left for so long and you've been seeing the mirage of a train for so long and even if you stand on the platform, the sun's heat would still burn your fragile skin. The choice to live is hard but to stop the inertia of moving leftward is just as tiring._

_But I'm going to try. And I'm not going to say why. You know my past, you know my parents, you know me inside and out, and so I'm not going to justify this to you. You don't know what I'm thinking and while that frustrates the fuck out of you, it's the only thing that gives me peace of mind. I've given you everything that I've had except my mind because I know you'd pull me onto that platform if I did and I just don't know if I want to use my legs anymore._

_You're a survivor. I don't want to presume that this'll influence your life in any way bar a few weeks at most. You're probably going to go fuck some strangers somewhere and visit your mom and then you're going to go back to being you. Because that's who I love. Who I loved. And I'm going to try because it's much easier for you to love me if you're not around me._

_I'm sorry, I guess. I'm selfish, I suppose. I'm dead, you know._

Happy stared at the piece of paper in his hands – they had started to shake minutely with adrenaline like they once had when he was first starting out at the MC. His mind was clear – confused by what he was skimming over – but he had linear thoughts and the only sign that he was affected at all by the words were his damn hands. That's how it always was. He didn't feel, but he showed and most of his training involved repressing those physical signs.

He read the last sentence before looking up and shoving the papers back on the mahogany table she had in the entryway. She liked dark wood, thought it gave off a more pleasant smell than any other type but was livid when he brought home that table. He didn't understand, it was the darkest piece of wood they had in the store – a store that he clearly had no business being in, if the hovering of the owners to make sure he didn't try to stuff a armoire in his cutte was any clue– and big enough to put flowers and a bowl to hold their keys in, on. That's what he thought she wanted and he took the time out of his day to go and buy it for her.

And after about an hour's worth of shouting that's apparently the part she had a problem with. She had a crappy job as a secretary for some legal office (the corporate kind, not anything useful in the club's eyes) in the next town over so whatever extra money she had after groceries and bills went directly towards gas or a pair of hose to replace the ones that sprung a run during the lunch hour. Happy pointed out that she had no way of paying for such a piece on her own and that's when she started to cry. She knew that, of course she did, and she was floored that he did something as domestic as buying her a table – but she hated the fact at the same time, too.

That was probably the first warning sign that he ignored.

She knew how to act when he wasn't domestic. When they were just fucking. When he would grab her onto his lap during a random party or would show up in the middle of the night to take her on a ride because he wasn't tired. She knew how to do casual, but the idea of him standing in a furniture store to splurge $450 on her when all of her Christmas gifts from her parents didn't add up to that amount was unsettling to her. She didn't know how to react and eventually she gave in to keeping it. Like he wanted. Like he got.

She was smart, though, leaving that note on the table and not near her. It ensured that when he found the note and read through it, she would most likely have gone through the deed itself, too and bought even more time for her to grow even colder. That didn't stop him from running through the small 1 bedroom, 1 bath bungalow that through technicalities she inhabited. Not in the kitchen nor living room right off of the entryway in an open floor plan, he rushed to the back two rooms and hit the depressing jackpot when he saw light emitting from underneath the bathroom door.

Even approaching death she was afraid of the dark.

Shouldering the door open with one single, powerful shove he stumbled uncharacteristically into the bathroom to see her dressed fully – legs crossed at the ankles, in the claw foot tub she had refurbished herself one Spring when it was raining too harshly to do anything else. Black pencil skirt, crisp white button up, thigh-highs with a no-doubt accompanying garter belt, and white piped-Mary Janes, she would have looked like they were simply role-playing naughty-secretary if it weren't for the fact that she was sopping wet.

Phone in one hand, he had already dialed 911 when he used the other one to pick the orange bottle off of the floor that had rolled his way sometime after her planned overdose due to an uneven, settling foundation. They were his, prescribed from a pharmacy-happy surgeon after he had to have a bullet removed from his liver (hunting accident, he lied). His was expected to remake a full recovery, but not without some pain and so they had given him enough to last a full year (most likely to milk his insurance for all its money). He only had it filled because the hospital had a pharmacy on site and only kept the pills because who knows when one of his brothers would get hurt next and needed pills, no questions asked.

The rumbles of motorcycles quickly followed the sounds of sirens and it already seemed like a procession, the line of Harley's, Dyna's and what-have-you's following the ambulance to St. Thomas. But the hospital was in the opposite direction than the cemetery and that was the only thought Happy allowed himself to dwell on.


	2. Chapter 2

I met Happy Lohman when I was sixteen during the summer before my junior year of high school. It was very illegal and probably should have been very distressing, but with parents like mine you tend to overlook the "should"'s of life.

Like, you should know where your dinner is coming from (or that it's coming at all) every night.  
You should put on clean, fitting clothes before you leave the house.  
You should go to school every day.  
Your parents should not be addicted to drugs.

Yeah, in the McHale household woulds, shoulds and coulds were treated like the fairytales told most children. You look back on them fondly, but don't expect them to birth anything real in life. Although, knowing my parents they _were_ actually living in the fairytales and paid no attention to the woulds, should and coulds at all. Just where they could get their next fix.

Everyone in Charming knew my parents were drug addicts. Their multiple arrests meant the police officers obviously knew. The one social worker for the tri-county area who had to collect me every 4 years (their seemingly unlucky number between arrests) until my parents completed either their jail or rehab time obviously knew. The kids at school who thought they wanted to emulate my parents for some stupid reason obviously knew.

And, of course, SAMCRO knew. You didn't live in Charming if you didn't know who or what SAMCRO was (even if your address said differently). And you didn't live in Charming if SAMCRO didn't have even just a slip of paper on you or your family. I couldn't imagine how big the metaphorical folder on my family was and I doubt my parents really cared, with how out of it they typically were anyway. While the bikers disliked drugs, especially in the illustrious but bucolic township of ours, they couldn't very well wag the finger at my "delinquent" parents when they themselves weren't exactly the Joneses. So even if they disapproved of what my parents did, the only time they warranted their own interference was when my parents would cook up the stupid idea of selling within Charming.

Now, because of all the chemicals altering my parents' brains, they had all sorts of memory loss problems. On some days it'd be long term and I had to in fact remind them that I was their daughter. Other days it'd be short term and I'd have to remind them they already took a shower and any more would waste water and increase our bill. There were the rare occasions when, even in their under the influence states, would seem rather sober and call me by name to ask me to cook them something. I didn't delude myself into longing for the days because it'd be like longing for plastic food when your stomach is about to implode on itself from being so empty.

And since their memory was shot, they would seemingly forget all of the times before when SAMCRO "warned" them not to start selling in Charming. They'd start off with the high school kids in the neighborhood before the bikers would somehow catch wind and you'd hear motorcycles clambering down the street at all hours. My parents, the dunces, wouldn't be scared until guys would knock down the door to give a physical reminder of just why selling in Charming would be a bad idea. Then they'd take the hint, stop selling until weeks, months, years would pass and the temptation for either more money or more drugs (because to be a dealer, you have to buy in bulk and you always give yourself a cut) would outweigh the appeal of smooth skin. Besides, they were junkies; they hadn't had smooth skin since their breastfed days.

I was never at home before, when the bikers came knocking by. Somehow, they would time it so I was either at school or I was still in foster care due to faulty paperwork. That summer night, though, changed the notion that they knew my schedule and respected it.

I didn't know they had started selling again. A summer job scooping ice cream at $4.50 an hour with a free cone per shift incentive meant I wasn't at home to see all of the sketchy people lurking in and out of the house, thinking they were inconspicuous. What exactly were they selling? I didn't know that either – I never knew, or could keep up, with their drug _du jour. _Sometimes the house would smell like weed and sometimes I'd see burnt, rusty spoons littering the floor. Besides, if I didn't know the ins and outs of their drug use I'd be less involved in their always impending trial.

But that night, I was barely asleep, staring at the water-stained ceiling with hooded eyes. Work had been 8 hours too long in the California heat, where the dry air seemed to linger like the black smoke of phantoms in scary movies. To go from one un-air conditioned setting to another was a double whammy of miserable, and not being able to stop counting the amount of weeks until school started where at least there was a regulated air filtering system was down-right hellish. Still, I counted and I sweated and I was lulling myself to sleep in abject boredom and annoyance when I heard the front door open. We were poor, the house was small and no one in their right mind would buy oil for squeaky hinges over pop tarts.

I heard muffled voices almost immediately after the door opened and closed, and the footsteps were dead give-a-ways that someone was in the house. I knew they weren't my parents and I couldn't care less. I should have been scared and with the life I had been given, I should have been more prepared to defend myself against unsavory characters I realized.

But I didn't care about shoulds any more than I cared about whoever was in my house.

I knew my life sucked.

I knew my life could suck a lot worse if I had been in an underdeveloped country or my parents were physically abusive. But they were neglectful and I was in an area where _I_ was the one that everyone compared themselves to whenever they wanted to feel better. Maybe shoving me into a closet when their "friends" would come around was actually a protective measure to prevent me being touched in anyway, but to an 8 year old it was just hurtfully confusing. My life wasn't glamorous and the straight C's I was getting in high school meant my future wasn't looking any better. Having to work almost full-time to provide for all of us meant that I couldn't improve my grades and the job as a secretary in the legal division of St. Thomas was provided through the school (I had to slightly bribe my boss to work so much), which meant once I graduated (if I graduated) I'd be out of luck.

My life didn't hold much promise or hope and while I wasn't exactly suicidal during that summer, as I laid on my bed tracing the water-stains I realized that I wouldn't be too disappointed if I was murdered in some scandalous drug heist.

But the footsteps traveled straight past my room into what I assumed was my parents' room. I didn't realize they were home; they weren't in the living room when I got off work and I wasn't about to look for their glassy eyes immediately after the mundane day that I had. I wasn't aware that I was holding my breath as I heard grunts, thumps and small yelps until my eyes started to roll into the back of my head.

When I regulated my breathing once again, the noises had stopped, which only caused me to hold my breath once again.

Now, I was welcome to whatever devastating fate was headed my way when it headed into my parents room but, like the first day of a dream job, I was still unsettled. Scared. Eager to get it over with and hoping that it would never happen. My eyes started to roll again when the door to my room opened and I clamped my lids down so fast my neck locked up for a second.

"You said no one was here," A gruff voice said, deep like a mace had been shoved down his throat and twisted a little. I learned later that these were the first words I ever heard Happy ever say.

"Shit," a second voice sounded by my bed – when did he get there? I had to quietly force my breathing to seem normal and I still felt very light headed. Was this the high my parents were chasing this entire time? "She must have got here when I went to call you."

"Fuck – you think she-" Third voice trailed off somewhere to my right. Did he really trail off or was I missing parts of the conversation? I couldn't feel my fingers anymore and I wasn't even sure if I had legs to move.

"We should just kill her," It was Happy again.

"Christ she's just a girl,"

"Liability – "

And then I blacked out from lack of oxygen.

Not exactly romantic to meet your future fuck buddy, love, boyfriend, friend with benefit, multiple one-night stand-er (all of the above?) because of your junky parents and have him threaten to kill you. In fact, most people would say you should never date or even be near anyone who does that.

But he didn't do romance any more than I did shoulds. And this is just how it worked for us.

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**A/N: Thank you everyone who has followed or reviewed! Just a little background for the protagonist (is it bad I still haven't decided on a first name? Eveyln McHale is a real person; she's the girl who committed suicide by jumping from a building mentioned in the first chapter, but I don't want to fully copy the name. Oh well).**

**Also, I'm thinking that this fix will be AU for the most part. It won't change any facts but it won't exactly be an episode by episode story either. Hope you enjoyed it!**


	3. Chapter 3

Hospitals are never quiet.

There are hearts beeping and wheels squeaking and elevators dinging. There are nurses chatting and doctors murmuring and relatives crying. There is Chibs praying in some other language and Jax murmuring on a cell phone and Happy stomping towards the gang in the waiting room of the ER.

"Won't fucking tell me what they're doing," He mentioned bluntly to the other two bikers, Opie and Tig. "We're not blood."

"Christ, her blood is what put her here," Chibs said, coming out of his religious mantra to stand up with the other three. Jax stood off a ways, pacing slightly as he waited to come off of the hold Tara had initiated.

"And they won't fucking know they put her here," Happy threatened, the hood of his eyes making it seem far too serious of a statement to be made towards brothers. Chibs responded with an "aye" while Opie and Tig just nodded their heads. All three men had a foot a part stance with their arms crossed as they waited for Jax to be done.

They had arrived twenty minutes before hand, witnessing an IV-hooked Harper wheeled through the double doors marked "Authorized Personal Only". Happy had taken it upon himself to harass the nurse at the front desk, the nurse who had passed through the swing doors and the nurse down a hallway in the wing of the hospital for the terminally ill – which was surprisingly and ironically placed close to the ER. The others stationed themselves by the double doors to make sure they were the first to receive any word about Harper's status. Jax, who had already woken Tara when he heard about their mercenary's woman, immediately phoned her to both let her know what was going on and persuade her to use her position in the hospital to find out anything. Between nurse harassments, Jax was put on hold so that she could call.

"Alright, alright yeah thanks," Jax had stopped pacing and instead took to nodding his head. "Love you too, stay safe."

He signed off, ended the call and walked towards the group. No one said anything as he arrived, waiting for him to drop a shoe, a bomb or a glorious present.

"According to Tara, the ink isn't even dry on her paperwork so there's no real telling what's going on. They've pumped her stomach but a lot of it made it to her blood so they have to keep her heart beating with some machine," Jax was speaking lowly as most of SAMCRO did whenever they were talking in public. It was habit, to keep outsiders out and with the way the nurse at the front desk had eyed them since Happy's choice words to her, meant they were being watched like a hawk for any reason to kick them out.

"But she's still alive, that's promising isn't it?" Opie asked, scratching his beard like he was trying to find the physical version of the optimism he put into his words. Jax glanced at Happy, who was staring at him right back – blank faced in a dare for Jax to tell him she wasn't going to make it.

"Yeah, yeah she's still alive," He sighed, drawing his own hand over his face before continuing. "But Tara says she's going to have to stay here for 72 hours even if she wakes up – everyone who tries to commit has to, hospital policy."

He wasn't sure if he avoided the word "suicide" for Happy's sake or because he still didn't want to believe that Harper tried to kill herself. Harper, the girl who played peak-a-boo with his two sons whenever there was a dinner and she wasn't invited to cook the meal as she wasn't an Old Lady, but didn't have to wait on anybody either as she wasn't a crow eater.

Harper tried to kill herself; he could think it but he didn't want to say it out loud. Nobody did.

"Staying in a damn hospital isn't going to make her feel better," Happy rasped, squinting slightly before turning his eye back on the unashamedly eavesdropping nurse.

"It's the law or something, Tara explained it. To make sure she isn't a danger to herself or some shit,"

"And she can't be here to explain it? Or let me see my fucking girlfriend?"

It was the first time anyone had heard Happy refer to Harper McHale as his girlfriend, and most likely the last, but they had to shrug the admission off quickly – quicker than his rising anger towards not being able to do anything in the situation but wait.

"No – Neeta had tonight off and no one can take care of the kids until Tara's shift tomorrow, like I said earlier."

"Man I hear you, but you know Gemma would want to know about this," Tig said.

"The less people know about this shit the better," Happy said, his fists clenching as they were released from his crossover down to his sides.

"Are you seriously suggesting we keep this from the Queen Bee?" Tig almost laughed in his face at the mere suggestion. He wouldn't put it past Gemma to have her own little minions of sweet butts corner the hospital gossip. "'Cause if you are, brother, then you stand alone."

With that statement Opie had to restrain Happy from Tig as Chibs hit him upside the head with a child-like scold.

"Listen – Gemma'll find out when Clay finds out tomorrow morning. Seeing as she ain't officially a part of this club," a pointed look was thrown at a panting Happy. "They aren't going to be happy to wake up to a phone call at this hour. We wait here for any news and when Tara gets in she'll ask to be the primary physician for Harper. Everyone got it?"

Solemn head nods meant they could all fall back into the hospital chairs and feign at least a semblance of relaxation.

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I didn't know I had become a liability until a week after my parents had their shake down. Black eyes, bruised ribs and shaken egos – they went a full twelve hours before reaching for a new drug and, strictly speaking, it was the most miserable twelve hours I had ever experienced with them.

Don't get me wrong, I was thankful to SAMCRO for at least implanting the idea of sobriety into my parents head, no matter how short a life that idea had outside of their capable hands, but they didn't have to suffer the withdrawals themselves. Nor did they have to witness the withdrawals that incapacitated their supposed caretakers to mere wriggling worms, only good for making loud noises and for hallucinating horrible things just as strong as if they were on whatever they were usually on. I didn't even have work until after the first hour into their drug-reduced state, so I was stuck witnessing grown adults regress into traumatized babies.

Happy explained to me much later that they had an entire "church" about whether or not to come back to the house to give me my own indoctrination of the pros of silence. My ego was stroked at the idea that they were concerned about what a 16 year old girl could do to their club. He said I should have been scared out of my mind, no matter the outcome.

But it worked out in my favor in the end. The club had indeed voted yes, I needed to be talked to but no I did not need to be _talked_ to (much to Happy's initial chagrin).

And the following week, when my parents' welts were still a dark purple due to the thinness of their blood and lack of clotting ability, I came home after a 3PM – 11 PM shift to three motorcycles in the car port. We didn't own a car; I took a bus anywhere I needed to go and my parents' bummed rides from whoever they could coerce into taking them somewhere. How I saw those dark bikes when the street lamp had long been blown out and the home owner's association had better things to do like try to stop the serial robber of TVs on the street than inform the city of the hazard will remain a mystery.

But, like the night they came to visit initially, I was a hypocritical mess of feelings walking up to my door. I walked slowly, calmly, like a pirate claiming that the fault in his steps was due to the flimsiness of the plank itself. My hands shook opening the door – not even bothering to see if my parents remembered to lock it in the first place – and I wondered if it was me or them they were after. And if it was me or them that would be the ones in danger.

And if it was me or them that was more excited by the prospect.

I walked through the motions of entering my house with slight confusion. I couldn't hear my parents but I couldn't hear the intruders either. Not a light was on in the house and I had to propel myself forward as if we were in one of those months that we couldn't pay our electricity bill. There wasn't a light underneath my door, either, and as my hand touched my door knob I either exhaled in victory or sighed from disappointment.

Only to have that breath sucked back up when I saw the three hulking figures standing in front of one of the rare windows in our house. It was small and faced our neighbor's cream siding, but still a thing to let natural light in.

There was a certain amount of terror attached to having three strangers in your room when you're faking sleep but there's a whole other level when you have to face them directly, without the luxury of playing possum.

"Hey-o Lass," The man closest to the door greeted. They had all turned toward me the minute they heard the door open but I stood still as I stared and tried to will myself to acknowledge their actual presence quicker. "I don't think you'd remember us, but you must've seen you're parents, eh?"

"We get in, we get out," A second man reminded him – raspy and Happy, I later learned, were synonymous words. "No jokes."

"God you're no fun like this man," The third – Tig – shouldered him. "We have prime high school pussy here and you just want to leave? Ain't like you, man."

I wasn't a blusher, but still that sentence seemed to snap me out of my trance. Somehow I didn't expect bikers to crack jokes, no matter how crass, when breaking and entering (or did my parents actually let them in? Where were they?).

"Why are you here?" I asked. Happy later told me I was brave for being so straight forward, for not stuttering, for not even trying to defend myself against them. I told him that you learn to expect strangers in your room of all shapes and sizes when you live with drug addicts.

"See your parents?" Happy asked.

"Of course," I still was standing in my doorway; hand on the knob with my bag hanging painfully off my shoulder. But I didn't make a move forward or backward. "They're negligent not absent."

"Aren't you curious about who did that to them? Mad even?" Chibs, a name I once more later learned, questioned while turning his head quite like a puppy. I could barely make out anyone's face in my room but he had longer hair than any of them. And an accent. Which would be a better signifier of his person.

"You did it to them," I shrugged, my bag finally hitting the floor with a thump. My hand was still on the knob though. "Just like you did it to 'em all the times before. But I won't say nothing."

I wasn't going to thank them for trying to get them to stay sober. For letting them avoid yet another arrest with a more serious crime attached than mere possession. For not killing me that first night. I didn't thank my garbage men and I wasn't about to thank them.

In a cliché fashion, Tig cracked his knuckles before chuckling slightly as Happy stepped forward in what he wanted to be a threatening way.

It just looked like a regular step in the dark without seeing the expression on his face, though.

"You won't ever say nothing," He said before continuing forward. I knew if any of them came closer to me they'd be able to hear the pounding of my heart but I wasn't going to let them know they were affecting me even if it was on a physical level. I could see him shake his head, though, before continuing: "You _are_ just a piece of high school pussy."

They had all begun to follow him towards me and there was a moment of awkwardness when I had to shuffle out of my doorway into the middle of my room so that they could pass by. Tig was the last one who raised his hands up and flung whatever he had at my head before laughing.

"Nice panties, kid" and he left.

The motorcycles herded down my street before I picked up my favorite pair of lace panties that I had bought myself with my first pay check off the floor and shuffled towards the bathroom to shower. Might as well wear them.

I didn't check if my parents were home that night.

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**A/N: Once again thank you to everyone who has followed this story! You haven't given up and actually see some sort of hope in this story so that's promising!**

**Enjoy!**


	4. Chapter 4

My first major depressive episode occurred after I graduated high school.

I had always been a downer; my sippy cup was half empty and my drinking glass was never full. The therapist my mediocre health insurance covered at my job at the legal firm said that my coping mechanism was alcohol throughout high school and that's most likely why my first distinct depressive episode was so late. By her accounts, I should have experienced one with my first major stressor like finals or that night when the bikers showed up in my house.

But nope. The thing that depressed me was the end of high school.

Cliché and annoying as fuck is what that "stressor" ending up being. I wasn't even sad that high school was ending in theory; I never made friends, only met people who would direct me to the party that weekend. And they wanted to direct me because, because of my parents, most drug dealers trusted me (even though technically I never bought anything from them) and I knew where the convenience stores were that didn't card.

We all knew, though, that after high school I wouldn't give a flying fuck about them and they would never say "Hi" to me on the street in their grown-up suits and combed hair, free of the bodacious waves of youth attitude. And maybe that's what was so depressing.

Added on to the fact that my job with the hospital officially ended and we didn't have a stable, or legal, method of income flowing into the house meant my summer was not sunny. The ice cream shop I had worked at the summer prior hired "fresher" faces to provide experience so that they could get work later on. Like that'll happen all because of a "scooper" being put on someone's resume.

Instead my summer was spent not being able to sleep (I blamed the California heat), but feeling tired all the time. I couldn't tell when June ended and July began, or if my parents had failed to turn any lights on or they just cut our power yet again. For some reason the last MC visit scared them straight from selling in Charming but that didn't stop them from hitching a ride from my "Uncle" Mickey into Lodi to sell to the high schoolers there.

Yay, we had money to buy groceries but you couldn't pay most bills straight in cash anymore. Especially if said collectors knew what your parents did and were worried that they were getting tainted money.

Even then, without a list and a determined mind-set, I felt like I was drifting astray through even the most remedial tasks like grocery shopping.

The last hoorah string of parties meant I had easy access to booze (my parents never stocked the stuff, preferring the harder way to get off), but it only made me feel number. And I was beginning to get drunken girls clutching my arms, telling their friend that they wanted to be "this" skinny while waving me around like a doll.

You work on that by getting a mood disorder and we'll see how happy you are with your new body, sweetheart.

So I was wafting through hangovers to at least feel something and drunken states to numb that feeling when it began to get too annoying when finally, at a party in the last week in July, the cops finally caught us in the act of actually partying.

Whether I didn't hear the kid yell "POLICE" or I did and just decided to ignore him to gain the experience of being arrested, I will never know. I was too far gone to really comprehend anything, but the policeman who was doing all of my paperwork said I was quite cooperative which was a nice change. And nothing turns a frown upside down like a sincere compliment from a cop when you're behind bars.

I knew my parents wouldn't pick up if I phoned them to bail me out (the charge was only underage drinking as they couldn't pin me as being a public disturbance nor could they confirm that I bought any alcohol or owned the house – which I didn't). They weren't stupid enough to ignore the caller ID and I'm pretty sure being drug addicts meant they would avoid anything that said "CHARMING PD" on it if they could help it.

So I was stuck spending the night sobering up in a cream colored jail cell, counting the number of sullen teenagers getting bailed out by their own disappointed and disgruntled parents instead of sheep. Too bad neither would help me sleep.

Being both a stupid drunk and someone at a party thrown by a rich kid who had one of those confusing PUR filters on his tap that I couldn't work (remember, drunk), I started to feel the pounding in my head around three AM. The pounding got worse as I earned new cell mates who banged the bars as they were escorted inside, to which only goaded the officers more into a noisy din of yelling and baton twirling and me wanting to stick the largest cotton swabs into my ears if only to blow out my own ear drums.

The noise eventually settled as the police officer – not the one that complimented me – walked away, but I didn't pull my head from between my knees.

"Why're you here?" A gruff voice asked. A gruff voice that I knew. A gruff voice that forced me to sit up quicker than was healthy and caused my vision to swim.

But I didn't need eye sight to know that whoever was in the cell next to mine was one of the guys in my room that night – the one that wanted to at least rough me up, if not more.

Now because my parents finally got the message that Charming was off limit to the drug trade and I never flapped my lips, I didn't have any other personal run-ins with SAMCRO. Sure, I'd see them gun their motorcycles down the streets but since that night I hadn't even made eye contact with a member and was quite content keeping it that way.

So for a member to acknowledge me suddenly again, as if I was the only person the club had threatened and therefore would never forget, sobered me up quickly. The throbbing of my brain was still there, but I could think clearly, finally. If only this had happened during a mundane task like picking up coffee grounds and I wouldn't have to take 15 minutes to decide which brand we had always had in the house.

"Drinking," I said cautiously, eyeing the bald headed man who was doing the same to me, in the adjacent cell. We sat facing each other and the close quarters of the holding cell – plus the fact that everyone else had been picked up – meant we were each other's proverbial bed fellows.

He smirked but didn't say anything – just crossed his arms over his chest and legs at the ankles, stretching them before him. He was wearing a white t-shirt stained with what was probably blood and mud around the collar and sleeves, jeans and the ever-so-permanent cutte. Tattoos peaked from every opening that his clothing offered and in my tired, but newly un-influenced state thought he could probably bend the bars encasing him if he wanted to.

But he was just smirking at me and it was annoying as fuck, so I rolled my eyes once and laid down on my back. I didn't even pretend I was going to sleep, I refused to allow my first willful sleep to happen in a jail cell, but at least I didn't see that stupid smirk.

"Happy," he said from his side. I was trying to master the art of zen and he had to go and ruin _that_. He probably hadn't even moved from when I last looked at him.

"What?" It came out more moan-y than I intended, but I lacked a lot of control over my body that summer.

"My name," He answered. I furrowed my brow at the ceiling. Glad to know our local MC gang was endorsed by Disney. "Yours is Harper McHale."

We sat – well I laid – in silence for a few more moments.

"Do you still want me dead?" I asked. It was a shot in the dark – I didn't even know if he for sure wanted me dead the first time – he just wanted something violent to happen to me. But I was past gleaning for an answer.

"Are you going to do something to make me want you dead?" He countered. I could hear that shit-eating smirk.

"Maybe," I shrugged, shifting so my back was to him. I felt exposed. "Never know when a girl you run into is one of those death-wish types."

"I do," I wish they put up curtains between cells. "You should sleep more often."

I didn't want to know how he knew I wasn't sleeping just as much as I wanted to know why he even got arrested in the first place.

* * *

It was 4:30 AM when Happy finally got access to Harper's room.

They had been waiting for three hours – Tig, Opie and Chibs snoring in a corner of the waiting room that they had sectioned off as theirs. Jax was stuck between flipping "ironically" through the parenting magazines and pacing up and down the halls. Sometimes coming back with coffee. Sometimes not.

Happy had stood the entire time by the double doors. Arms crossed, he leaned against the wall and stared straight ahead gathering whatever thoughts were flying through his head. No emotions were showing on his face and Jax knew the eerie calm that washed over his brother as the same calm that came over him when he was planning his next kill. It worried him.

So when a nurse had walked through the doors to tell the party that came in with Harper McHale that the doctors were finally done and that a call from her sudden primary doctor in the place, Tara, allowed for one visitor to sit with her, Jax had half a mind to tell Happy he shouldn't go. But he was already halfway down the hallway through the previously forbidden doors before even the nurse had time to react to his departure and raced after him to show him which room she was in. Jax could only guess that Tara called the hospital as soon as she woke up again because her shift didn't start for another hour.

Happy sat in a sleeping Harper's room in a chair in the corner on the same wall as the door. The doctors gave her heavy sedatives to make sure she got through the night, letting her autonomic response system regulate her body rather than let her emotions influence and fluctuate her heart rate, breathing, etc. He didn't want to hear any other medical information from the eager to leave nurse, though, cutting her off when she went onto explain just exactly what the ER did. He didn't want to have to explain it to the guys again later on and besides, Tara would explain it with an easier digestion.

No, for that moment, he just wanted to sit and stare at Harper from the shadows with the beeping confirmation that she wasn't dead.

Although the fact that she put herself there in the first place made him consider making it so anyway.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you everyone who followed and reviewed this story! I really do appreciate it!**

**This feels a bit more angst-y and teenage sarcastic than all the other Harper POVs, but it's fitting with her just graduating high school I guess. **


	5. Chapter 5

When you first get a serious job, they send you to HR to fill out all this paperwork and take some tests. Now, they'll say they're just silly personality tests – ones to help break up the monotonous repetition of "Date and Sign" for tax purposes – but that's true for only some of them.

Others, like the CPI and MMPI, are actually used by your employers to determine your personality type without having to interact with you. Through the results of those tests, they can prescreen your susceptibility to mental illnesses and see how best you work (be it in group or individually). Due to federal law, they can't exactly fire you if you show up having a bundle of disorders, but they can heavily suggest you take up their health plan's cover for therapeutic sessions.

I had gotten the job as a secretary with the legal firm in the town directly south of Charming as a recommendation from my boss in the hospital. It had practically fallen into my lap before the start of the new school year, where all of my former classmates would be going off to college and I would be left contemplating the wise words from the kids on the Trix commercials.

"You can't have my Trix," they'd say and we'd all pity the poor rabbit, thinking that the kids were just being mean and not sharing. In reality, they were doing him a favor because rabbits need a lot of fiber to maintain their digestive tracts and a sugary cereal would most likely just result in diarrhea.

But the call from the legal firm, seemingly out of the blue, when I was still half-awake, and the following interview in which I was hopped up on too much caffeine because God forbid I yawn during something like this, provided some sort of silver lining. We'd have a steady income again and I wouldn't have to find a way to get out of the house without worrying that my bouts of drifting would leave me too far away to walk back and waste money on the bus.

I was still in my depression episode, though. A thing like that isn't magically cured by a phone call or a single prayer session or a good night's rest (which was still eluding me). It's a slow process; when you've been sitting for too long and you've lost all circulation in your legs, you can't automatically stand up and start running. You look stupid, tiptoeing clumsy around for a while until you can get the feeling back into your legs.

And the during the interview and HR process, I was trying to get the feelings back into my legs. Which meant that I wasn't totally okay and that my answers to the MMPI were not exactly "sane". That resulted in the job offer of "You can work for us, but please seek some help so that you won't go postal one of these days."

I found a therapist through the legal firm's health network and our first meeting was basically me taking more tests (thankfully none of that projective visual shit – I see an ink blot. That's all) and me telling her that she doesn't need to tip-toe around my parents' predilection for narcotics or ask me how it makes me feel. We all know about their usage and it's obvious I'm not too torn up from it, or I wouldn't have been able to get a job at all.

She took that as me being slightly hostile and said that my _not_ wanting to revolve just one more second of my day around them meant I was obviously traumatized by them and had to talk about it eventually. But first things first, the results of my tests and then she could help me.

A few sessions later, she finally revealed she thought me as having major depressive disorder with a possible mild passive-aggressive personality disorder. And an unhealthy reliance on a depressor to avoid real life (although I hadn't touched too much alcohol since my arrest). She said most disorders travel together and that I've been trying too hard to suppress most emotions that should be expressed naturally.

Whatever. Let her think what she wants. I'm prone to depressive bouts. Okay, but I was getting out of one when she told me that and the world didn't seem so dark. I wasn't stuck in my house anymore and we had running water again and let her think anything in the world. I'll still see her, she'll still try to get me on Prozac or something mood stabilizing and I'll always refuse to stick a non-Advil pill in my body.

I had been alive for 18 years and some months already, so what exactly could I do with an actual name to describe my method of thinking and coping? I had gone through the bulk of my first "episode" without help, so what exactly was she trying to achieve here?

I never shied from telling her most things about my life, though, simply because she wasn't the enemy. She wasn't making me sad nor was she trying to keep me that way. She was just another person in my life and thankfully I never recognized her as a friend, despite how much she knew about me, because that would have just been disastrous when I received the first co-pay statement from my insurance company.

My therapist, Dr. Berkley, said I was most likely officially out of my episode when I bought my first car. It was a cheap-ass Toyota with melted crayons in the back seat and a passenger door that liked to stick. But I finally had my own car (thanks to the salary allotted at the legal firm) and my own license (after taking the test when I turned 18) and I never had to ride the bus again.

The real test of whether or not I was out of my episode, Berkley stated, was when my car broke down for the first time on account of its 11 year old age and poor upkeep from its previous owner. Apparently there was a disconnected cable that made it overheat, but I didn't know that until it was towed into Teller-Morrow.

SAMCRO never seemed like the sharing type, much like the kids from the Trix commercials, and that included their day-jobs too. The monopoly they had on the auto-repair market seemed rather unfair, but most people wanted to avoid taking their cars back to the dealership so they kept their mouths shut about the bikers' dicey corner.

Whoever drove the tow truck (did he actually tell me his name?) was either not that high in the ranks of the gang or not a part of it at all – he didn't seem to know me and that was fine. We drove in relative silence, him only commenting briefly on how the winds seemed to be back for fall and how welcome they were with a slight chuckle. I politely laughed back before wondering just how much of my pay check would have to be put aside for this little breakdown.

The driver may not have known who I was, but the guys on the lot were another story. Even though I couldn't see the intruders very well that night, the head shapes and heights (as bizarre as it sounds) were very distinct and the man who threw my panties at my head laughed the minute he saw me.

"Hey Babe," He called out before hitting the third man (not Happy) in the arm with his rag, muttering something probably dirty to him before grinning at me.

I gave a slight smile – just how is one supposed to react to an intruder if the only thing they did to you was threaten you - before heading towards the office that the driver had pointed out to me when we got out of the cab. He said he'd have my car looked at as soon as possible, but I'd still need to fill out some paper work. Luckily, on my walk into the concrete building I didn't run into any other member that recognized me.

"Yeah?" A woman sitting behind the desk littered with paper unprofessionally called out after I had knocked on the open door. She didn't look up though; just continued marking whatever it was she was marking. Great customer service; why did people want to avoid their dealerships again?

"My car was just towed in – the white Toyota Camry – I was told to start filling out forms," I trailed off, wondering if I had to recount all of the driver's and my conversation until she answered. Finally, she looked up at me. Well, more like eyed in a strictly nonsexual way. Sized me up, if you will.

"We just need a copy of your license and insurance, honey," Although I doubt I was her 'honey'. "You won't be filling anything out until after we know what's wrong with it – you do have insurance don't you?"

I nodded as I stepped forward and as soon as I was by the chairs in front of her desk I rummaged through my beat up army green messenger bag for the insurance policy I had pulled out of my glove compartment before stepping into the cab of the tow truck. I awkwardly slid my ID out of my wallet in the same panicked hurry that you feel when you receive change back at the store and there's a long line behind you.

Handing them over to her awaiting hand, she looked them over with darting eyes before turning around in her swivel chair to the printer sitting on a table behind her and started to make the copies.

"You can wait in here or out there, doesn't really matter. If it's nothing, then you'll probably leave today but if it's something serious you'll need to find another ride," She called in a perfunctory manner as she still sat facing away from me.

Still standing, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I waited outside, I wouldn't have the awkward silence that staying inside would no doubt provide. And, if I had sized _her_ up correctly, I'd be the only one feeling the awkwardness. But if I waited outside, I'd either die from the heat or overexposure to the sun. Life unexpectedly sucked but at least I slept last night.

I bit the bullet and decided to take a chance with the awkward. I'd have something to discuss with Berkley that week, at least. And I had a book in my bag, too – a high school "classic" that I actually avoided in high school. Better late than never, and a perfect excuse to not talk and not stare at the woman who actually never gave me her name.

From what I gathered, she took one look at the book I was reading before snorting and returned to her paperwork. She hadn't given me back my ID yet, but I really doubted she'd steal something like that so I just waited. Read and waited. Heard her shuffle a few more papers and waited.

Until the last person I wanted to see/hear poked his head into the doorway and asked, "You got the paperwork for the car we just unloaded?"

Ever since my night in the pokey, I had started to see Happy almost everywhere. Walking home, arms loaded with groceries, he'd ride past me – no helmet – with increased noise as if just to piss me off. The day of my interview, when I was in the only knee-length skirt I owned and trying to get off the bus without revealing anything more than the mole above my knee, he was at the gas station across from the bus stop. Granted, I can't say I owned the streets I frequented more than I can put a limit on where he can get his gas, but every time we crossed paths he would smirk at me and I knew it was never a coincidence that he was there.

Which freaked me out, yeah, but mostly just annoyed me. Wasn't I just high school pussy to him? Even if I had technically graduated, what made him seek me out just to play mind games?

Luckily he hadn't taken notice of me sitting in the chair (slumping more like) until the woman replied, "One Toyota Camry for a Ms. Harper McHale". Her own smirk let me know that she knew just exactly who I was and my past rendezvous with the club.

Fuck their monopoly, this wasn't fair.

I could feel his eyes burning the back of my head just as I pretended to be completely absorbed in my book and tuned out to the world around me. _1984_ was interesting, but not _that_ interesting.

His boots made large clomping sounds on the concrete floor that over rid the sound of the metal fan blowing in the corner and he purposefully leaned over my head in an exaggerated manner to take the copies of my insurance and who knows what else out of the woman's hands. I kept my eyes on my book and tried my hand at pyrokinesis.

Happy smelled like leather and motor-oil and I'm pretty sure I absorbed the extra testosterone orbiting him like small asteroids.

Once he left, thankfully without saying anything to me, I could feel her eyes on me once more – probably smirking again (why must everyone smirk at me?) – before we lapsed back into the eminent silence.

Six thirty was when she finally kicked me out, telling me that if they hadn't finished my car by then, then I wasn't going to be driving it home that day. She told me I'd get a call tomorrow with details about when to pick it up and then asked me if I needed to phone a cab or someone.

I told her no, but thanks, smiled and left the office. I ignored whatever the mechanics were saying as I passed the work area, although I was certain and paranoid that they were in fact saying _things_ to me and started my trek home. It was probably 4 or 5 miles away from Teller-Morrow, but the exercise would do me some good, I wagered. Berkley was telling me to find a healthy outlet for whatever pent up feelings I had (although I never thought of them as pent-up just non-existent) and what was healthier than exercise?

* * *

Harper's hands and eyes were twitching as she slowly rode out the last few drops of the sedatives in her body. Happy didn't know what strings Tara pulled to let him stay in that room outside of visiting hours, but he didn't care all the same. Jax told him that everyone was bound to pay their respects – as if she was dead – in an hour or two, but how long ago was that? Happy didn't care.

He wasn't much of a planner, unless it came to the systematic but fool-proof planning of a murder, and preferred spontaneous conversation rather than practiced. But that being said, he had no idea what to say to Harper once she woke up. Talking, or not talking, to her had never been a problem for him. But her not talking to him, refusing to let him in like she did and apparently had been doing the past few months or however long the last episode was.

That wasn't okay and that was something Happy cared about.

* * *

**A/N: Wow! A huge, astronomical thanks to everyone that reviewed or followed/favorited the last chapter/this story in general!**

**This is the longest chapter to date so that's my gift to you? I know it's slow right now, barely any teasing between the characters which means it's practically boring but we're getting to some serious flirtation/action within the immediate, next chapters so that's something to cheer for. **


	6. Chapter 6

"Get on,"

I had been walking for thirty minutes already – almost exactly half way to my house – and repeated the mantra of "It could be worse" as motivation to continue on.

Because it could have been. I could have been walking in the dead of summer in which sweat would be pouring down my back like a hurricane. I could have been walking during a hurricane. I could have been forced to run the distance by being chased by a dog. A bear. A crazed mugger with an axe and no sense of who would be the best to mug (hint, not a girl who already looks down on her luck with cut offs and a cheap purse).

But no, I was walking in the cool California month of January in the still-pretty-light-twilight of the setting sun with no one to keep me company (wanted or otherwise) other than the sparse cars to my right.

Or at least, I was alone until the purr of a motorcycle vibrated behind me, causing me to begin to hold my breath. The hair standing on the back of my neck told me that only one biker could be behind me and the growing ire told me only one biker would actually stop beside me, on the completely illegal side of the road.

It had been a long day. I had to go to an auto shop on my day off to spend money I had planned on saving for accidents like this _much _later in my life and didn't even get my car back the same day. The encounters I had shared with Happy already started to mount towards something, but what, I wasn't exactly sure.

He did, he was the one who invented the fucking game, but I could tell he wasn't much for sharing either.

And I knew the minute he commanded I get on the back of his bike, that my – or his – cup hath runneth over.

So I did what any sensible woman who had recently come out of a depressive spell with shady parents and barely a high school diploma would do; declined and tried not to laugh at him as he straddled his bike next to me down the road like the only kid on the block that got a Huffy for Christmas and wanted to show off to his friends while they went to the park.

Which of course led to him finally revving his engine once at the sight of an on-coming car, speed towards it in a bizarre game of chicken before quickly dead-turning onto the sidewalk in front of me and holding out his helmet.

"Get on," He repeated once more, his gruff voice mimicking the rumbling of the still-on engine of his bike.

We held eye contact for a discernible amount of time before I took the helmet – avoiding the stretch of his impossibly long fingers. One of the only reasons I couldn't be considered borderline personality disordered, Berkley told me, was that I was rarely impulsive but rather methodical in my reasoning. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to prove her wrong and if he was actually just taking me to a deserted place to kill me, it wasn't like I was never minuscule-ly wishing for a pause in the monotony of the day so it was a win-win no matter his intentions.

But as we were speeding towards the opposite direction of my house without ever drifting into a left-lane turn lane to make a u-turn, I started to question why I wanted to prove Berkley wrong. Mental illnesses weren't Pokémon and I shouldn't want to collect any of them. Why was I so affronted when she told me that I wasn't impulsive when that was the God's honest truth?

I was thinking "I'm so fucking dumb" as I yelled "You're fucking stupid if you think I live this way," over Happy's shoulder. I was positive he intentionally had a smaller bitch seat because I had to be molded to him if I wanted any of my ass to feel the cushion. My arms were pressed against his abs, my thighs behind his and the vibrations. God I wished I was still depressed in that moment because at least then I didn't have to really worry about being aroused.

And the fact that the first time I felt the_ itch_ in a long time was because of Happy was not helping me like him any better.

He didn't act like he heard me until we finally hit a red light, way past Teller-Morrow heading towards the highway ramp. Happy simply turned around, his lips so close to touching mine because I had kept my head on his shoulder to maintain some sort of sense of control as I could see where we were going, at least.

"We are not going to fuck in that hell-hole," He then turned around to see the crossing traffic slow down for a yellow light. "No offense."

A green light and we were speeding off again, as if I had already consented to whatever tryst he had obviously planned in his mind. The begrudging dampness between my legs and inevitably close to his own said that I had, but not in my mind.

The Wanna-Be-Winona-Ryder in me sided with my crotch but the Don't-Glorify-Mental-Illness-No-Matter-How-Relatab le-the-Material voice said I would be being untrue to myself.

But I would only be being untrue because I wasn't completely satisfied with how Happy had been treating me. That made me question, though, if I liked how any of my past partners treated me. I had lost my virginity sophomore year at a party, although I'm pretty sure someone slipped something into my drink sometime during. I had no proof, but then again I couldn't really remember anything before waking up completely naked in my own, dried hymnal juices (which I never recommend to anyone) at practically a stranger's house.

It was very possible that I was piss-drunk and not roofied, but either way I couldn't say I liked not knowing who took my virginity.

In a way, I was thankful that it was gone, though. I no longer felt imprisoned by such a weird intangible stigma and while I wasn't wild enough to gain the "slut" reputation in high school, I did unfortunately have my own "For a good time call…" section in the boy's locker room. I put out when I felt like it and each time I chose when to have sex, or especially when I chose to blue-ball a guy, I felt more and more relieved of the emotional hold that my possible-rape had over me.

Because I was in control then. It wasn't dictating to me how my own body should be used, out of a place of fear.

But none of the boys I fooled around with were boyfriends. And while Happy certainly wasn't a boy, I doubted he wanted to be my boyfriend either. And I didn't want him to be. But I couldn't deny the fact that he oozed sexual prowess that would have made B-List porn stars quiver in job insecurity.

And that rationale was why I didn't contradict him over his assuming statement of how we'd spend the night, even though we were practically already pulling into the driveway of a ranch style home literally on the other side of town from me when I reached that rationale.

* * *

Harper had awoken the next day before Happy, which is how his alarm clock ended up being her heart monitor racing as she tried to recognize the foreign place she wound up in.

It didn't look like Heaven, Oz or Hell. She was confused, where _was _she, and the IV in her hand and oxygen tubing up her nostrils caused her eyes to water up.

Tara had surprisingly no trouble pushing Happy out of the hospital room while she and three nurses tried to calm Harper down. Happy didn't want to see that shit. No matter how aloof he was to the outside world and no matter how sadistically kinky he was in the intimate world, he didn't revel in the pain of those he was close to. He was the first to admit he was excellent at being a protector of the club, but after watching his own mother in her health battle he had to come to terms with the fact that there was no protection from yourself if it decided to turn on you.

While he stood outside of her room, listening to Tara yell various instructions to the nurses ("100 CC'S OF…", "…PULL SLOWLY", "GET THE SYRINGE READY,") between trying to talk to Harper to get her to consciously accept that she was in fact living ("Harper, it's me, Tara, you were at my baby shower"), he wondered if that would be the moment SAMCRO would show up. He knew they didn't come while he was sleeping – he was far too light of a sleeper to miss Gemma's boots against the tile and he wasn't even asleep for that long anyway.

A familiar blond turned the corner into the lonely hallway towards Happy as he fingered his cell phone to get an ETA. But the sight of the blond's pinched, nymph face made his fingers curl into his palm outside of his pants pocket instead of pounding the prepaid number keys. Stalking three steps in her direction, Happy took in her suddenly alarmed face with a great, sick satisfaction.

"Why the fuck didn't you stop this?" He practically growled out. A hospital wasn't the place for him execute brute force but every atom in his upper body wanted to slam her against the window into Harper's private room so Berkley could see the damage done to her patient. "She fucking trusted you and you left her high and dry."

"Mr. Lohman," Dr. Berkley had tried to sound professional with her French chignon but the verbal quiver meant his cold demeanor was definitely intimidating her. "You know Harper as well as I do – better even" as if the declaration would get him on her side "She's very capable of compartmentalizing her episodes and feelings to avoid feeling like a burden."

His glare didn't stop. Yeah, Harper was a secretive bitch but any other time she was feeling low she'd come home and say "I think I'm getting sad again," and he'd at least know. But who the fuck knew how long she'd been hiding this particular episode – beside Berkley, that is.

Their conversation was cut short by louder voices emanating from Harper's room and a fifth person in scrubs rushing down the hallway from the other end with a large cart laden with technology. Tara burst through the door, yelling "Get that crash cart in here," before slamming the door back shut after it and the scrubs had entered through the thresh hold, once again shutting both Happy and Dr. Berkley out of Harper's life.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favorited. You are seriously superstars!**

**This one is a little shorter but hey, at least you know that Harper and Happy are finally to the boning part of their relationship, so there's that! I don't think I'm actually capable of a full on sex scene but there will be implications galore. **


	7. Chapter 7

If you told me that Happy Lohman was the type of man who teased you after having sex, I'd both be bewildered that we were even talking about have sex with Happy but also confused as to what he could tease you about.

"You whimper when you cum," He was laughing at me as we were both sprawled out in a tiny shoebox of a house that was both cleaner and homier than my own. Not one to cuddle, only our biceps touched as we caught our breath. I was unsure if he wanted to go for an uneven round three and the throbbing of not only my netherland but hips where he had held on too tightly made me question if I could go another time.

"What?" I asked with disbelief. Could you make fun of someone's cum noise/face after you just had sex? Wasn't there an unwritten rule that you didn't do that until you were in the tight confines of a friend's home the day after?

"You fucking whimper," Happy repeated himself and God could I hear that smirk. "I thought you'd be quiet, moan a little maybe. Most girls with your type of baggage are fucking silent."

I wasn't sure which one I was more offended at; the fact that he was still laughing at me or that he called me a girl with baggage.

"Okay," I said dismissively as I heaved myself upward into a sitting position. There was no top sheet on the bed after our most recent romp and the trail of my clothing would lead me to the door anyway. "Fuck you, though"

Fuck him twice for making me walk the long-ass-haul more than half-way across town to my own abode.

"You gonna do it?" He asked, grabbing my forearm that acted like my anchor as I reached down for the shoe haphazardly on the floor beside his queen sized bed. When I tried to yank it out of his hand, he just gripped tighter and made the formative bruises on my hips jolt in misplaced pain.

"Let go, Happy," I said as calmly as I could without looking at him.

"No, not until you tell me why you're suddenly an ice bitch?"

"Maybe because you just called me a bitch. Maybe because you told me I had baggage. Mostly because you had some fucked up notion of what I sounded like during sex and then made fun of _me_ when I didn't meet your expectations. I'm sorry for that, by the way, did I ruin whatever fantasy you've obviously had of me naked while you 'dominated my tight white pussy'?"

If he could call me out on what I said during sex, then so could I. Telling him that the whole domination thing was kind of exciting would ruin my tirade, though, and it's not like he didn't already know that part anyway.

But instead of being intimated – which was the ultimate, if not impossibly lofty goal – Happy kept his hand on my arm.

Then he started to mew, like a kitten. Mew and then moan his own name in a breathy tone that sounded too eerily like what I had voiced minutes prior. He teased me and then imitated me. Bastard.

"I found it endearing," Happy said after he finished mimicking my finish. "Truly, unexpected and hot from you."

I finally turned back around to face him, the skin on my back twisting in a way that couldn't have been attractive at all.

"You're unbelievable," I tried to claw at his hand with my other hand, leveraging my weight onto my jailed arm.

Which, in hindsight was a dumb idea because when he did let go, my still clawing hand was interlinked between his fingers and I went head first level with his crotch. But before I could scramble up and try to retain a smidge of dignity, Happy had taken my shoulders and flipped me back onto my back – my probably bruised arm no longer awkwardly trapped beneath me.

"You're a fucking goddess," He growled before kissing me roughly. Damn him and his tongue. "And I'm fucking a goddess."

That was whispered hoarsely into my ear before he continued assaulting my neck and collarbone. Suddenly I couldn't feel anything, so the soreness between my legs and surrounding my stomach didn't much matter anymore.

Fuck me, though, because when he said "Do it – whimper for me, baby" as what is probably one of the least sexy things you could say to me before climaxing, I had to stifle a laugh. It might count as one of the fastest turn arounds of being offended by something into laughing at it, though.

* * *

Tara looked a little worse for wear as she stripped her hands of her latex gloves before depositing them into the haz-mat bin located right outside of the door. She was expecting to see Happy outside of Harper's room, but not the full on SAMCRO brigade and had to hide her groan. She was tired, she was spooked and she did not want to deal with Gemma at that moment.

"What happened?" Jax had smartly been the one to ask, but Happy stood against the opposite wall, his eyes not leaving the doctor. Berkley had left minutes after the crash cart first went into Harper's room, saying she'd be back later to find out if everything was okay.

"We've been giving Miss McHale chlordiazepoxide to combat whatever side-effects of alcohol withdrawal she'd go through while in our care," Tara kept her eyes on Jax and tried to distance herself from the case as much as possible. This was her job and she was on duty. "When she arrived, her liver was close to failing and with the stress of the pills and the consequent stomach pumping, we didn't want to chance it. Seizures are quite common with the medication, though, and the strain her body is still enduring tried to reject the drug. She is stable now, though, and is resting."

She was a doctor, once in Chicago, of course she'd seen more traumatizing things than a patient going through a seizure but after having Thomas, her emotional stability had taken a sharp plunge. Jax enveloped her in a hug while Gemma had taken to fixing her eye on Happy, who seemed like he hadn't reacted at all to Tara's admission that his whatever had almost died, again.

"You know she was hitting the sauce hard?" She asked, trying to dig out information like an eager kid digging a daffodil out of the snow because he loved spring.

"She has some in the house," Happy said, moving his eyes over to the top-ranking Old Lady, glaring slightly. "She never had a problem before; stopped drinking before I did. Whenever the fuck she drank, she did it alone."

"Her liver will be okay," Tara mismatched-ly added, after stepping back from Jax's arms. She met Happy's sudden stare this time. "She's young and liver's repair themselves with the right care. If she doesn't stop now, she'll need a transplant in the future but for now she's okay."

"Can we see her?" Juice asked from the left, closest to the set of doors.

"Harper's asleep, but you can go in," Tara conceded, eyes roaming over the imposing bikers that had lined the hall. Hell, Harper wasn't even an official Old Lady and yet here they all were, lending Happy support. Most of the time she hated their "Ride together, stay together" attitude but they were a family and the cockles of her heart couldn't be constricted after being reminded of that. "If you stay quiet."

* * *

Happy had taken to sneaking into my room at night like the uncommon criminal that he was. We'd only been screwing around for eight months – not even exclusively if the other scratches on his back were any indication - and it had taken two to convince him to fuck me in my "hellhole". It wasn't because of kinky reasons, mostly because I lived closer to my work and driving all the way out to his place and then having to drive back to mine to change (I was not about to start leaving things over there) meant I slept very little.

And if my last episode was any indication of the sleep I'd get whenever I was "sad", I wanted to sleep as much as possible as if those extra minutes were nuts and I was a squirrel preparing for winter.

When he first came over, crawling through the window with so much unexpected grace that it was no longer a huge wonder why he was an asset to the club (although I wasn't exactly privy to what he did), I almost had a heart attack. It was the only time I hit Happy with enough force to hinder him from moving for a good three minutes, but the credit could only really be taken by the metal baseball bat I had next to my bed. He was angry even though he understood just why I'd hit someone sneaking into my room and the sex that followed had a roughness that made me assume he was going to bruise me as much as I probably bruised him.

Happy told me he only snuck into my room because I was a grown-ass woman still living with her parents and that he had to add an element of sexiness somehow. Whatever got him off, I guess.

The last time he crept in, though, changed our "fuck and leave" dynamic and the jury was still out if that was a good thing.

Now, there's inherent danger to anyone living with drug addicts. Most of the time it's the dangers of what the drug addicts themselves will do to you under the influence; most of the time it's who they bring over to either score from or to score with. My parents, while neglectful in their ever harrowing journey towards the perfect high, did have enough sense to hide me when I was little in whatever small, unassuming space was immediately available to protect me. I thought it was a bizarre, un-fun game of hide and seek until I was 14 and discovered I get less cramps in my legs if I just left the house whenever someone would arrive. This was implausible during the nighttime scores, of course, but I could always lock my door with a kitchen chair shoved underneath the knob and it'd practically be the same thing as an unassuming small space.

It was either the exhaustion from creating entirely new files, both physical and digital, for an extensive case the law firm had just gotten, or the sense of security Happy had installed in me on the nights he'd come over that made me overlook the chair under the knob routine. The lock had long been broken on my door, since I was 7 and accidently locked myself out which caused my father to ram the door open (surprisingly not injuring his scrawny self in the process) and it never was important enough to fix before.

But laying on my bed that night, the visible parts of my skin covered in burning scratches from a friend of my parents' on a bad trip hallucinating that I was covered in centipedes, I figured that the lock might be important enough to replace. I was in the middle of thinking that Happy would probably physically replace it if I asked him nicely when he showed up in my window and I groaned. I cleaned myself up after the friend had staggered away to fall unconscious in the living room but that didn't mean I didn't look like I was swallowed whole by a shark whose teeth still grazed me.

"The fuck happened to you?" He was angry. He was definitely angry if he could ask that and the only light in my room being the moonlight.

"Friend of my parents apparently is afraid of centipedes – he was trying to save me." I was stupid in trying to lighten the mood a little, I'll admit it, but I didn't like the way he was looking at me either.

"Christ," he finally muttered when his hand grazed a particularly bad cut on my shoulder and I hissed at the contact. "Shit. I'll gut him,"

Happy moved to stop away from me but I grabbed his wrist.

"He didn't mean it, he's high," Why the fuck was I defending him? The look on Happy's face meant he was asking me the same thing.

"He put his hands on you," Happy replied and snapped his arm away from me.

"I am not a victim," I said just as nastily, not even bothering to keep my voice down even though it was 2 AM and the walls were thin. "He was confused, I was stupid and most of these will be healed by tomorrow anyway. He ain't gonna learn anything you beat into him tonight and I sure as hell won't touch you if you do. I've been dealing with this sort of shit a lot longer than you, it's fine, let it go."

I let him assume I've been dealing with actually interacting with them, rather than just having the random weirdos in my house. But he didn't come closer to the bed like I expected, either way. Instead he muttered something about not wanting to touch me tonight anyway and when I heard the groans coming from the hallway, I knew he was beating that guy.

He left that night shortly after and the next day I came home to a new door, with three types of deadbolt locks on it and lace lingerie on my bed.

The weeks following he had less and less scratches of his own; I had been half-hoping that he was just getting better at finding girls with shorter nails.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you to all who have followed the story!  
**

**I don't really like this chapter but whatever, it's here. Enjoy it while you can! I think this story will be over with within the next two-three chapters so that should be exciting as well. **


	8. Chapter 8

Dr. Berkley kept telling me to look out for the other shoe to drop. She said I was starting to use "bad behaviors" to anticipate another depressive episode. Then she had the gall to not tell me what those behaviors were until I explicitly asked her.

Looking back, the not sleeping and opening my arms back to alcohol_ were_ reminiscent of my first episode, but at the time she seemed paranoid. Sure, I wasn't feeling like a ray of sunshine, but had I ever? Wasn't pessimism just my natural disposition – why should I be punished for being an outlier in a culture that doesn't happen to appreciate my outlook?

I scoffed at Berkley's then weekly warning that I need to start addressing what was making me collapse into my steeled self and went about my business. I remembered that first episode and aside from the tiredness, I didn't feel anything like _her_. Besides, the sleeplessness was more about Happy's increasing involvement in my nighttime activities rather than my subconscious just refusing to sleep. He still didn't like to cuddle but when you're exhausted, what's a hand about the waist anyway?

But neither she nor I could anticipate Gemma's arrival to my doorstep one Tuesday after work.

It had been about two weeks after I had been scratched – which sounded ridiculous, to be violently scratched by a crazed man, so I just said I had gotten a new cat without declawing it – and the only open wound still was one on my shoulder that could be easily covered. My parents were God knows where and for once I was thankful that I had to house to myself during the daylight hours. I wasn't doing anything that I wouldn't have done had they been there, but it was relaxing to know that I could do anything in that moment.

"I'm Gemma, from Teller-Morrow – a friend of Happy's," She said, introducing herself before I could even edge a greeting out when I first opened the door. That name would have been nice to know when I was actually at Teller-Morrow, but whatever.

"Oh," I said in a strangled voice. It was strange that anyone rang to doorbell let alone was there without a pizza or a warrant. "Hi there…?"

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" She nearly snarled out the last word with a scary smile. She was what I imagined all the princesses from the Disney movies saw the Queen as before discovering that they were evil.

"Right, right, come on in," I replied, still fairly confused and tripping over my ankle as I tried to step backward to let her through the door. Once inside, I led her to my bedroom – the only for-sure clean area of the house and tried to offer her a drink.

"No, thanks though," I really didn't think she appreciated the offer in the first place.

"Well I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here," She said, sitting on the edge of my bed waiting for my head nod. "Happy's told SAMCRO about your [she looked around my room as if she wanted to burn the entire place down with Clorox instead of kerosene] living situation – you do know what SAMCRO is, right?"

"I grew up in Charming," I replied, leaning against my dresser with my arms crossed. I was skeptical and slightly angry that I didn't know shit about what Happy did but apparently the entire club knew I was fucking scratched to high heaven. "SAMCRO was my first word."

"It wasn't 'cocaine'?" She said with the same smirk that must've been in the guidebook to being a member of SAMCRO, and a biting tone. I immediately stood up straight.

"Screw you. Think and say and judge what you want about my parents; you'll probably be in the right but if you think you know shit about me just because Happy told you something, you can show yourself out and die on my porch for all I care," I opened my own bedroom door and raised an eyebrow when she didn't move off of my bed. She was more woman than I was and there was no I could physically remove her from my house.

How does one insult the Queen of Charming so badly that she won't ever return?

"Well that took balls, sweetheart," She finally said in an approving tone. Like I wanted her approval at that point. "But I'm not here to play a game of 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours'."

Oh so now she stands up.

"Happy mentioned you're looking for a new place to stay. A friend of the club just so happens to be in the renovation business and has a house he's willing to rent. It'll be $250 a month plus utilities,"

My jaw had already dropped at the mention of the rent. That was like staying in a hotel in a huge city for a single night; how the fuck could that be the price for an entire month?

Granted it was probably all that I could afford with my starting salary and lack of savings.

"Tell Happy if you want the place or not; he's holding it open for you until Friday,"

And with that the Queen finally walked out of my house unescorted and I so desperately wanted to do the same.

Fast-forward past a heated discussion with Happy about what about my life shouldn't be privy to other's ears – that only ended in make-up sex and not an actual agreement of "what's mine isn't the club's" - to packing all of my things into a U-Haul to only be unloaded at the cutest beige bungalow not too far from Happy's own abode (I'm sure that was just a coincidence).

After the three prospects had unloaded the truck, all four motorcyclists received a suspicious phone-call calling them to duty. A logical part of me knew that Happy would be back later, as he promised, to christen the house and that since I didn't want the club in my business I shouldn't be in theirs. Another part of me really, really, really wanted to know just why Happy had so many fucking smiley faces tattooed on his body and why he had blood wiped in places that didn't have any open wound sometimes. That part was dominant most of the time.

I had bought and subsequently hid two six-packs of beer in the linen closet in the bathroom after they left.

The room itself was lack luster and since this was technically my own place, I was itching to start nesting and I knew I'd start with the bathroom. Maybe a claw foot tub - it wouldn't be that hard to get in California with all the Victorian aged houses randomly about.

With each walk from my darkened bedroom floor to the bathroom closet to retrieve yet another bottle, I questioned myself why I was A) not refrigerating them and B) hiding them in the first place. This was my place, who would judge me for having alcohol in my house? Happy would probably be confused as to where I got the alcohol from since I still had two years to go to be "legal", and after my fourth bottle I realized I was more concerned that he'd judge me with drinking so much.

We weren't a very vocal couple, if you could call us that in the first place, and he rarely questioned why I did things, but there I was the first night in my own space worried that he'd look down on me for drinking. And the kicker was I actually cared if he looked down on me, unlike so many others in this town.

That's when I realized that Berkley was right. I couldn't stop crying over a bottle of beer and the sudden realization that I had far too many feelings for a man that hadn't, and probably wouldn't, ever tell me where his father was or where he went to school. I was in my second ever depressive episode that I knew of and, for the first time, completely physically alone.

I couldn't decide if being alone was just a side-effect of the episode, or the harbinger.

* * *

Happy had been waiting. Waiting for Harper to wake up. Waiting for Tara to finish her check-up once she did. Waiting for Berkley and two other psychologists to finish their preliminary evaluation of Harper's mental status. Waiting for Tara again to stop looking at him with pity. Waiting for Harper to answer him after he asked why when they were finally alone.

"Why what?" She asked, uncharacteristically avoidant while looking at her hands.

He didn't repeat his question. He didn't even move from the foot of her bed. He wanted to, though. He wanted to treat her like all the other suspects that the club had him interrogate; he wanted to squeeze her twiddling hands so hard that all of her fingers would break in a chain reaction. He wanted to stand behind her, his own fingers splayed about her neck while his palms rested at the base of her head and press inward so that the oxygen and nerve signals flowing into her brain would be cut off without leaving the tale-tell bruising of regular suffocation.

He wanted to make her feel as uncomfortable as he did waiting for her to wake up but he didn't really want to. He couldn't. He stayed behind the chart that gave all of her information and stared at her until her eyes met his.

"I'm not a croweater and I'm not an Old Lady and before you I wasn't anybody either but I can't go back to being comfortable with it," She started to talk fast as if she had planned out the speech but when she practiced it, she was still over the time limit by a few seconds. "And I'm emotionally crippled and I won't amount to anything above being a secretary and my parents are shitheads but the only thing to make me feel truly worthless is the fact that I'm nobody to you and I'm tired of feeling that way for a guy."

"Who the fuck said you aren't anybody?" He growled out, knowing for a fact that it wasn't actually ever uttered to her. Whenever he did bring her over to family dinner, because of Gemma's want for some "moxy", everyone liked her. Tig flirted shamelessly, Jax and Opie acted like their school boy selves and Chibs always tried to share some history lesson with her on account of her last name.

"You, Happy, you," There was a newly lit emotion in her eyes that he was actually glad to see, even though it wasn't a positive emotion at all. Her entire hospital stay, she had looked like an overdosed sleeping beauty. The grease in her blond hair from lack of showering clumped strands together near the scalp and while she wasn't exactly tan before, the unforgiving florescent lighting made her look translucent. She looked hollowed and spacey and not like Harper at all. "I don't even know if I want your crow but the fact that you refuse to give me it isn't exactly comforting. You won't tell me why you won't tattoo me, though, because that's too personal and,"

Harper stopped mid-sentence to put a once fisted hand on her chest and try to slow down her breathing. The heart monitor raced before placating itself into the steady rhythm that sounded when Happy first entered the room.

Even though he had seen her passed out in the middle of her own watery grave, in that moment Harper McHale looked her weakest and if he hadn't been who he was, he'd have to kneel and gasp for air too.

But before he could move towards her, a nurse rushed into the room – most likely attracted to the sudden spike that had just happened, before checking the paper that had come shooting out of one of the machines beside Harper's bed.

The nurse shot Happy an aggravated look, "You can't excite her too much; she's still under the influence of a cocktail of drugs – we can't rush them around her body too fast."

He was shooed back into the hall where Tara had first shot him a look of pity. He had seen that face on her before, Gemma and Lyla and whoever Bobby was seeing, too.

Yes, the guys liked Harper well enough but every family dinner when all the wives or serious girlfriends would set the table for dinner and then later disassemble it, Harper was never invited. She wasn't an Old Lady so she didn't get to interact with them in such an intimate way, reserved for those who fought for their spots; she wasn't a crow eater so she didn't have to wait hand and foot on the men, either. She was stuck to baby-sitting duty; she was wonderful at distracting Abel and Thomas, getting their attentions so whole-heartedly that they didn't overhear anything that was being discussed in the living room.

Gemma had given Happy countless amounts of "subtle" signs that she approved of Harper. Tara too, unexpectedly on the same side as Gemma, thought Harper fit well into their mismatched family. She was blunt and rather suspicious of anyone who wasn't plotting a way to use her, but she had good incentives and the innate ability to not question that which she shouldn't question. She was stoic, like Happy, but not homicidal and besides, having one more set of hands in the kitchen that wasn't as conniving as Gemma or as worn down as Lyla (as she should be, being a mother to all those children) would have been a Godsend.

* * *

Harper wasn't asleep when Happy sat down by her bed later that night, only a small bedside lamp illuminating the room. Her heart beat was slow again and they removed the oxygen tube in her nose, but he couldn't get her face from earlier out of his head – even if he stared at her as intently as he was.

"I didn't mean it," There she went, sounding far away and avoidant again. She didn't turn to look at Happy – instead she faced the door like she had been ever since he walked in. "What I said earlier. I want your crow. I want it and I'm scared of how much I want it. Because we've never been _that_ couple. We haven't even said 'I love you' out loud. You fuck me and no one else, and I do domestic shit for you. By saying 'I want your crow' I'm trying to change us. By admitting how feeble I feel without you, I'm being a girl you don't want to be with. By telling you that I drink when you're not there _because_ you're not there, I'm admitting that I'm weak and not someone you want to associate with and I don't want to lose you. I didn't want to lose you but I didn't want to lose myself anymore either and I didn't want to do anything else – nothing else made sense _to do_. Because at least if I wasn't living it wouldn't be so torturous not having you anymore. But now I'm just tired. I'm tired, Happy, I'm tired of pretending and wishing and drinking and people walking in and out of this room with stupid baby voices as if loud noises would upset me. I'm tired of you thinking I owe you an explanation when I know it wouldn't even make you feel guilty if I out right said 'I tried to kill myself because of you.' Berkley says most people can't admit to saying they tried to off themselves out-loud this early. Can't admit to it right away. But I did and I probably will again someday and I just know, now, that you'll most likely not be the one to call the police if and when it happens. Because I want your crow but I don't want to be the type of woman who wears a crow."

* * *

**A/N: Soooooooo sorry for getting this out relatively late! I knew what I wanted to write I just didn't want to physically write it. So I can't even fall back on the "writer's block" excuse that's oh so forgiving; I'm just lazy. :(.  
**

**But thank you to all who have reviewed or followed this story, you're aces!**

**Chapter's long again but I think at this point I really have to stop saying that because all of my chapters are "long" for this story. They're just long in comparison to the chapters of my other stories...**

**Anyway I'm pretty sure the next chapter is the last chapter. There might be an epilogue but who knows at this point (especially if I get lazy like you now know I'm prone to being). **

**But also, her second depressive episode is _not_ the one that lands her into suicidal waters. Time has passed - I'm thinking at least a full year. I know by the APA standards, most "episodes" have to last at least 2 weeks and for certain disorders up to 6 months but I can't remember if that's for MDD or not. If you know, feel free to correct me because I am not a psychologist. **


	9. Chapter 9

When you go to any sort of anonymous group, they tell you if it's court ordered and you don't actually want to be there, you shouldn't speak.

But that didn't stop Tara from trying to get me to say something at my own AA meetings as my sponsor.

She told me since I wasn't even properly charged – that it was only a stipulation of my discharge from the hospital – that the rule didn't apply to me. I had no idea what to say, though. I did want to stop drinking but that's because I was slowly getting out of my episode.

It's a misconception that you want to end things when you hit rock bottom. When you're there, you're too tired to end things. Everything hurts and moving the slightest of inches – even if it is to stop the pain – seems like it'd make it worse.

It's when things are starting to look up that tries to kill you.

Because you don't realize things are looking up. You don't realize that your own perspective is shifting – that you're coping with certain triggers better. All you know is that suddenly you don't feel so worn out by simply waking and that's when it doesn't seem too hard to kill yourself.

I was already shifting out when I took all those pills and my first three meetings I was feeling on the up and up in the most pessimistic way – but I still was too tired to talk.

Because I knew that this wasn't the last time I'd feel sad. Because I knew when the next time I felt sad I'd want to drink again and who knows if I'd say no then.

I didn't really want to talk to anyone once I got out of the hospital, but I felt an uncomfortable obligation to try with Tara. She was one of the only ones from SAMCRO to continue to see me after Happy left that day. At first I thought it was just because she was my doctor but then she started talking about becoming my sponsor and that's when the obligated but polite words began pouring out of my mouth.

Gemma had stopped by once to inform me I'd still be able to rent the house for club price, that there were no hard feelings between us. I knew she was just afraid that if I was kicked out onto the street, I'd somehow get better at offing myself and for some odd reason she didn't want my blood on her hands. Some random kid who happened to wear the wrong colors, but had a chance of leading a world-impacting life was like a ketch-up stain on her finger tips but my blood would've been like sharpie.

Flattered, I muttered out a thanks as a last, but not morbid goodbye.

I didn't spend that many Friday nights at the clubhouse, but when the loud noises of illicit activities was replaced with the shaming silence of former addicts, I realized just how involved with the club I was. Not enough to be threatened instead of allowed to leave peacefully, just enough to wish to be threatened to not say anything to make being away more explanatory.

A chapter in my life ended because of a man. How 21st century, the world is my oyster woman of me.

Two months had past, Dr. Berkley was getting frustrated with my lack of will to be or feel anything and I still hadn't introduced myself to the AA group. But hey, I wasn't suicidal.

* * *

I heard fluttering about a minute after I had unlocked my door, setting my keys on the table that I embarrassingly cringed at seeing every time I saw it but didn't have the heart or the know-how to get rid of it. Can you set perfectly fine furniture out by the curb? I knew it'd be a waste to just throw it away, but the idea of reselling it or even donating it so that someone else could have what Happy gave me seemed worse than seeing it every day. I knew someone else was sleeping with him, but I didn't have to see that like I did with the table and that was comforting (not knowing who it was and having the table with me, even if I'd never admit it out loud).

Since the house was a relatively new build, spawn of the housing boom right before the crash less than ten years ago, I knew it couldn't have been old age creaks. I wasn't quite sure what it was, the same way you never know what the hidden picture was in those scrambled up images in the Sunday funnies that would eventually produce both a 3D image and a headache.

Which made suddenly seeing a black _thing_ flying out from my back bedroom into the living room all the more terrifying.

"What the FUCK?" I escalated in voice as _it_ stopped flying to perch on a floor lamp by the sofa. "Is that a raven?"

Now, I hadn't expected a bird in my house the same way I didn't expect anyone else to be there either. Talking out loud without seeming insane was a privilege living alone allotted me, although the stay in the hospital four months ago made my neighbors assume I couldn't be any more loony.

"It's a crow, you bitch," The gravelly voice, mixed with the surprise of the apparent crow was too much for the muscles in my legs to work and I slumped against the arm of the couch.

"Happy?" I whispered. Fuck him for making me this way, all jelly and breached of breath like I was in 8th grade and we had actually talked since my attempt.

"You wanted my crow, you got my fucking crow," He said as if I hadn't said a thing.

He had walked into the room from where I guessed he kept the bird, his bald head the same as ever. In fact, he looked as if a day didn't go by, but then again less than half a year hardly warranted a complete make-over. He still had his cutte on – where was his motorcycle, it wasn't on the street – and had his arms crossed still a good six steps away from me. His eyes burned holes into my face as if he really hated me and if it weren't for the fact that he miraculously got a crow just to release it in my house, I would have thought he actually did.

"Happy," I said, louder than the last time. I got use of my legs once more and stood up to my full height – still four inches shorter than him but not completely submissive either. Too many emotions were mixed inside of me and for once, I knew I finally had an update to tell Berkley. "What are you doing here?"

"You're a fucking bitch," He said, still erect and glaring at me. If I hadn't heard him, I would have doubted his lips moved at all "Putting that on me. Saying I made you try to kill yourself-"

"I never said that – I said what you made me feel, felt unnatural and uncomfortable and,"

I trailed off trying to re-describe what I felt at that time. It all seemed ridiculous now but at the time, not feeling like myself and not knowing when I'd begin to feel like me again was terrifying. Maybe I was transferring my inability to deal with my depression and how it affected my personality onto my confusion with what I felt for Happy and its should-be positive affect on my life, but at the time it seemed logical.

But how dare he be so pompous as to think he and he alone made me suicidal. The fact that I was still alive after he left should have been a pillar to the defense against that idea.

"And you never told me shit about it," He finished for me. Still angry. "You didn't say a fucking thing – I had to read that you loved me in a fucking suicide note!"

"You haven't even said it to me!" We were matching tones now. "I don't care if you do or you don't [I really stupidly did], but you can't pontificate to me the right way to trade 'I love you's!"

That made him close the gap between us in three strides (he didn't even look silly, using such large steps, the bastard). The feeling I got back in my legs was slowly ebbing away again, being sucked into the vacuums of his emotionally dilated eyes.

"Is that news to you? Did that shock you? Have I ever come home to you and opened up about my day?"

He had a point. Fucking bastard.

"I never pretended to be a sensitive pussy-bitch. I never pretended to have a locked up heart that only you had a key to. It's who I am and who you apparently fell in love with. But I love you because you never apologized for what you felt even when everyone else fucking would. Because you knew I wouldn't give you an inch either for whatever you confessed. And if you hadn't been so secretive I would have done this a lot sooner."

The confession left me reeling and I once again sat done, lowering my height so I stared up at him.

"Bring a bird into my home?" I was back to whispering and resorted to poor humor to buy myself time to react properly. Somehow, his eyes didn't seem so squinty and his biceps un-flexed themselves.

"Give you my crow," Happy stepped towards me to put those relaxed arms on my shoulders so that I wouldn't stop looking at him. God, could I not catch a break with the surprises?

"I don't want you in that life. I don't tell you shit because I like you not knowing it. You go to parties, you go to dinner, but you don't understand what anyone is talking about and I like that. You're a vacation and I won't induct you into that life. This is the closest I'm going to get marking you permanently."

I swear to God if all make-up kisses were like the one we shared then, I'd mandate that we explosively fought every so often just to feel it.

"I'm going to get sad again," I admitted, mouth still close to his as my forehead rested against his. "Berkley says I can learn better coping mechanisms but it'll take some time. You're going to have to reassure me and it scares me that I need someone as much as you,"

"Just don't shut me out," I've never heard his voice so quiet before. So low or open and it was ironic that he had only just finished telling me that he'd never open up to me. "Tell me and it won't happen again,"

His breath washed against my face as I let my eyes flutter closed. I don't know how long we stood/sat like that, sharing a few kisses in between the silence. The fact that this whole ordeal started with a bird being in my house flew my mind until the bird itself flew past me.

"I know it's a literal interpretation of your 'crow' and romantic as fuck, but do I have to keep it?" I asked, leaning away from Happy to look at the culprit that just shit on the tile in the kitchen.

* * *

**A/N: I'm not "completing" this story because I feel like I owe you guys an epilogue so there's that.**

**sorry if it feels sparse, like this note. Can't really explain without sounding extremely whiny so just bare with me until the epilogue!**


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